Monday, September 11, 2000

Man finds roadwork fascinating

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By KAREN SAMPLES
The Cincinnati Enquirer

        Where we see ugly orange barrels, Tex Ronshausen sees pictures. With his pocket-sized Kodak, he has snapped hundreds of photos of road construction around Greater Cincinnati.

        It's his No. 1 hobby. At 56, he has never married nor had children. For a living, he drives railroad workers to and from job sites. He and his cat, Sweetheart, live in a one-bedroom apartment in Carthage.

        But Mr. Ronshausen is not lonely. Through the lens of his camera, the city keeps him company.

        He knows its dignitaries and its highway engineers. He knows its skyline, floods and steamboat races. Best of all, he knows its concrete and steel.

        First thing every morning, he reads the road construction articles in the newspaper.

        He likes to be in on the action. At ribbon cuttings to inaugurate roads, Mr. Ronshausen is the quiet fellow in the back, often wearing a Reds T-shirt, always carrying his camera.

        “It makes me feel like I'm a part of the city,” he says.

        He might have been a highway engineer, but he never finished college. Now he takes pictures and attends ceremonies while waiting for dispatches from his boss.

        In 1997, Mr. Ronshausen went to the opening of Ronald Reagan Cross Country Highway. He came home with a piece of the ribbon, which he pasted into one of his many photo albums.

        In 1975, he helped open the Interstate 471 bridge from Kentucky to Ohio. He stood within a few feet of governors, highway officials and other politicians. That was a big day. He even got on television.

        “I was the first citizen to cross that bridge, other than the famous celebrities who were there,” Mr. Ronshausen says.

        Besides ceremonial pictures, he has taken hundreds that show construction in progress.

        Many of his favorites were stolen from a storage facility in 1995. Fortunately, there are always new opportunities.

        “I'm fascinated that a highway engineer could design the new Fort Washington Way in two years,” Mr. Ronshausen says. “It's amazing what that man did. It's the only highway project I've ever been around where they worked in the middle of the night.”

        He labels his photos and catalogs road trivia in his mind. Second Street is really a five-lane bridge, he says, and Fort Washington Way carries 140,000 vehicles an hour.

        Mr. Ronshausen is especially fond of the “cut in the hill” along I-75 in Covington. While driving, he is sometimes so moved that he snaps pictures of the backs of other people's cars, with the Cincinnati skyline in the distance.

        “The freeways and bridges mean a lot to drivers and the public,” he says.

        Every year, Mr. Ronshausen makes a pilgrimage to Columbus to observe the ongoing construction of I-670. Then he turns around and comes home.

        He is a solitary man. His second favorite hobby is attending Reds and Bengals games — by himself.

        “I don't want anyone breaking my concentration on the ballgame,” he says.

        His photos rarely feature people, and yet he is Cincinnati's biggest fan. The roads and highways keep him connected.

        “I'll continue looking at my pictures until the day I die,” Mr. Ronshausen says. “I'm really proud of my city.”

        Karen Samples is The Enquirer's Kentucky columnist. She can be reached at (859) 578-5584 or email her at ksamples@enquirer.com